


Demob

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship/Love, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Light Angst, One Shot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-World War I, Pre-Canon, Shippy Gen, Smoking, Tea, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-31 22:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20247946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: From a prompt bygaslightgallowson a quotation fromWuthering Heights: “He’s always, always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself – but as my own being.”Details and some dialogue are taken fromBusman's Honeymoon.





	Demob

On the train from Kent, bound for the great unknown of Denver Ducis, it occurs suddenly to Mervyn Bunter that he had never considered doing anything else. Not while promising his mother faithfully to write, as he had done some five years before. Not while accepting the fearful condescension of the butler’s handshake, or the packet of scones and the kiss that had been pressed on him by Mary Jane, the under housemaid. Nor had an alternative attracted him during the endless weeks of demob, with the other chaps boasting, or fretting, or building castles in the air. 

In the rattling train with its pale and silent passengers, he is tempted for the first time to think of it as a fool’s undertaking. But stronger than loneliness, stronger than the atmosphere of worry shared by the other faded men and women in the carriage, is the memory of the strange clarity of war. There had been the long night of fighting their way back to the lines, and a dirty enough business that had been. Bunter had become accustomed, by that point, to the fanfaronades beginning: “If we ever get out of this…” But coming from Captain Wimsey, it had not sounded either boastful or desperate. It had been strangely cool and matter-of-fact, the most real thing in that nightmarish darkness. And the next morning, he had paused while Bunter was engaged in polishing his boots, having roughly brushed from them the unspeakable mud. He had said nothing until Bunter had looked up, only gesturing to him to remain seated.

“Entirely serious about that offer,” Captain Wimsey had said, without preamble.

“Thank you, sir.” He had held the other man’s eyes. He had watched him: gray face against the gray sky, and troubled gray eyes darkest of all. “That’s quite understood,” added Sergeant Bunter, and it was then that he saw the slim shoulders relax, almost imperceptibly.

“Good. No ill effects, I trust?”

“No, sir.” They had both seen the humor in that, of course, and the captain had continued his tour of inspection.

Mervyn Bunter wonders at himself, now. He wonders at the fact that it never occurred to him to doubt, not even after the captain — major, by then — had been buried, and resurrected, and returned to them. He remembers the sick intensity of waiting for news, the hoarse cheer that had gone up from the company at hearing that the man whom the others called “Windowpane” had survived, and would. 

On the platform at King’s Cross, Bunter walks up and down, and smokes, and fails to shake himself out of his own certainty. He is somehow sure that whatever he finds will be manageable, will be desirable, will be infinitely preferable to the infinite number of rational possibilities that might present themselves. 

The lodge-keeper, who is hollered for by his wife as Jenkins, gives him directions without undue question or surprise. Sergeant Bunter walks briskly along under the beech trees, until out of the flat gray country Duke’s Denver rises improbable. He tells himself that it would be more reasonable to feel as though he were entering battle than entering into his own prepared and rightful place. He takes a deep breath, and squares his shoulders, and rings the bell.

The butler who confronts him is a tall man with a stiffness about him that suggests arthritis rather than condescension.

“Sergeant Bunter,” says Bunter, before he can be asked what his errand is or if he would be so good as to step round to the side entrance. “Come to enter Lord Peter Wimsey’s service.” This, strangely, seems to discomfit the man more than an anonymous stranger in a demob suit on his doorstep.

The butler clears his throat. “Will you just step in? I shall ascertain if you can be seen.” But before the man can ascertain anything — before Bunter can take in the remarkable proportions of the hall, the wide and confident sweep of the staircase — they are accosted by a small woman with steel-gray hair and a bustling manner. “Well, Grandisson, what is it?”

“A Sergeant Bunter, your Grace,” says Mr. Grandisson, looking pained. “He, er, he says that he has come to enter Lord Peter’s service.”

“Oh!” At this, the Duchess descends the magnificent staircase with startling rapidity. “Well, don’t let us keep you standing about, Grandisson.” Silently the man bows, silently he dematerializes into the dimness of the hall. Bunter sets down his case, and stands in parade rest.

“Sergeant Bunter?”

“Yes, your Grace. Having obtained my demobilization, I came to take up the situation which his lordship was good enough to offer me.”

“Ah,” says the Duchess. She tilts her head to the side, rather like a worried bird. “And that was…”

“In 1917, your Grace.”

“Ah,” says the Duchess again. “Well, Sergeant Bunter, I’m afraid that he may not be capable… Oh, he’s not mad,” she adds, interrupting herself with such alacrity that Bunter wonders what his face looks like. “But he may not be capable of taking you on — of making his mind up to take anyone on.”

Bunter listens to the racing of his own pulse, and wonders when it is going to come, the sudden conviction that he has made a mistake, the sudden doubt.

“Well,” says the Duchess, with a little sigh, “you may certainly try. It isn’t good for Peter to — that is, I’m sure it would be helpful if — oh dear, muddle really is fatal, dear Mr. Forster, right about so many things.” They are halfway up the staircase before she speaks again. “He doesn’t like giving orders, you see.”

Surprisingly, in the hallway, she stops. Resolutely, without looking at him, she says: “It’s one of Peter’s bad days, I’m afraid.”

The room she ushers him into is dark. The curtains are closed, keeping out even the watery gray light of a Norfolk January. For the first time that day, Bunter shivers. In the corner of the sofa is a huddled figure, horribly strange, too familiar to be unrecognizable. 

“Who is it? Who’s there?” Bunter breathes again. The voice, high and shaken and sharp-edged, is yet the same.

“Sergeant Bunter, my lord, come to enter your lordship’s service as arranged.” He strides across the No Man’s Land of the darkened room, and draws the heavy curtains, and turns around to look into the face of his future.

The gray eyes are wide in the pale face, and the narrow hands are visibly trembling. But he has raised his head. “Bunter.” It is barely above a whisper.

“Yes, my lord.” Bunter swallows, and waits. He does not know if he is waiting for a welcome, or for a question, or for an order.

“Bunter,” says Lord Peter Wimsey again, and Bunter knows that he will take that as welcome and question, as order and plea.

“Yes, my lord,” says Bunter, and crosses to the light switch. “I shall arrange to have some tea sent up.”


End file.
